Banished Pastor Still At Brooklyn Church

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27874, 24 January 1956, Page 13

Banished Pastor Still At Brooklyn Church

NEW YORK, January 22. An Episcopalian (Protestant) minister who had been ordered from his pulpit for alleged Leftist activities preached a sermon today charging that it was “irrational and absurd” for Christians to refuse to have anything to do with Communists. The minister, the Rev. William Melish, created a sensation last Sunday by preaching a sermon in competition with a service led by another minister sent in by the bishop. But Mr Mulish had no competition when he appeared at the Holy Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church in Brooklyn this morning. Mr Melish, aged 45, has been given permission to serve the parish until a Supreme Court trial of the charges involved in his dismissal begins on January 31. A controversial figure in the church for years, he has been assistant minister since 1950. His father, the Rev. Dr. John Howard Melish. was removed by the bishop in 1949 for supporting the son’s alleged pro-Communist ' activities. I After conducting Holy Communion I services and the regular 11 a.m. service, Mr Melish went to the church I gymnasium for coffee and cake with

his parishioners. He refused to discuss the church fight with reporters. All those who attended today's service were given printed copies of an open letter written by the clerk of the vestry, two vestrymen and the two cochairmen of the parishioners’ committee for the church. The letter described what happened last Sunday to Mr Melish in the dispute. It said that the senior warden of the church illegally removed all 40 locks from the church doors and replaced them with other locks in an effort to keep Mr Melish out. It also said that the Rt. Rev. James Pernette Dewolfe, Bishop of Long Island, had no right to send a minister to replace Mr. Melish without Mr Melish’s permission or unless the church had been without any services for 30 days.